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The browser extension

Save ads straight from the Meta Ad Library into your boards.

What it does

The CreativeScout browser extension adds a save button while you browse the official Meta Ad Library. One click sends the ad into a board of your workspace, without copying URLs around.

What it saves

Facts only: the Library ID, the ad text, the landing page URL, the page name, the advertiser's public page ID, the start date and the active status at the moment of saving. CreativeScout never stores images or videos from Meta, and it never scrapes; the extension reads what you are already looking at and records the facts into your workspace.

Install

You can install the extension today, straight from your dashboard. A Chrome Web Store listing is coming; the link will appear here as soon as it is live, and the dashboard download stays available either way.

  1. In the app, open Settings and find the "Browser extension" section.
  2. Click "Download extension (.zip)" and unzip the file.
  3. Open chrome://extensions in Chrome.
  4. Enable Developer mode (toggle in the top right).
  5. Click "Load unpacked" and select the unzipped creativescout-extension folder.

Connect it to your workspace

Two ways, pick one:

  • Just be logged in: if you are logged in to app.creativescout.ai in the same Chrome profile, the extension uses your session automatically. Nothing to configure. If the save button shows "Log in to CreativeScout", click it, sign in, done.
  • Personal token: on another machine or profile, open Settings, click "Generate token" and copy it immediately (it is shown only once). Paste it into the extension popup.

Tokens can be revoked any time in Settings. A revoked token stops working immediately; generate a new one to reconnect.

Choosing the workspace

If you belong to more than one workspace, the extension popup shows a "Workspace" picker above the board picker. Pick the workspace you want to bookmark into; the board list reloads for it right away, and every save from then on lands there. The choice is remembered until you change it.

One exception: if you connected with a personal token, the picker is shown but disabled. A token belongs to exactly one workspace, by design. To save into a different one, either log in with your session in that Chrome profile, or generate a token in the other workspace and paste that one instead.

With only one workspace there is no picker, because there is nothing to choose.

Saving ads

Browse the Meta Ad Library as usual. Every ad card gets a small Save button next to its Library ID. One click saves to your last-used board; the arrow next to it lets you pick a different board. The button turns to "Saved" and tells you which board the ad is on.

How long an ad has been running

Next to the Save button, every card shows how long the ad has been live: "12 days active", or "9 hrs active" for ads that started today. Anything running 30 days or longer is highlighted, because a competitor keeping an ad alive that long is the strongest signal you get from the outside.

The number comes from Meta's own "Total active time" when it is on the card, and otherwise from the start date. If Meta shows neither, the card simply has no badge; nothing is estimated.

The filter bar

A small CreativeScout pill sits in the bottom left corner of the Ad Library and tells you how many of the loaded ads are currently shown. Click it to open the filters:

  • Running at least / at most: the main one. Set "at least 10 days" and every short-lived test ad disappears from the page.
  • Platforms: tick only Facebook and Instagram to drop placements you do not care about. All platforms are on by default.
  • Status: active, inactive, or both.
  • Links to a website: hides boosted posts that stay on Facebook or Instagram, so you only see ads that actually send traffic somewhere.
  • Shopify only: CreativeScout checks the landing pages of the ads on your screen and keeps the Shopify stores. Cards stay visible until their result arrives, so nothing flashes away. This is the one filter that asks our server, and it only sends the landing domains, never your browsing.
  • Hide low impressions: a minimum EU reach. Because Meta publishes reach only in the ad details, this can judge the cards whose reach is known and leaves the rest visible rather than hiding them on a guess.
  • Sort: keep Meta's own order, or reorder the loaded ads by longest running or newest.
  • CPM and currency: feeds the spend estimate in the card drawer.
  • Search loaded ads: filters by any text on the cards.
  • Saved searches: store a filter set under a name and apply it again with one click.

Filters apply to the ads Meta has already loaded into the page. Scroll further and newly loaded ads are filtered too. The extension never loads results in the background.

Downloading an ad

The arrow next to Save opens a drawer with a Download section: the video (MP4) or image of the ad, and the ad copy plus its facts as a TXT file. Files land in a CreativeScout folder in your downloads, named after the advertiser and the Library ID.

The download runs from Meta straight to your own disk. Nothing is uploaded to or stored on CreativeScout servers, and it only ever happens when you click it.

Estimating ad spend

The drawer also has an "Estimate spend" button. Meta publishes an EU reach figure for ads shown in the EU; combined with the CPM you set in the filter bar it gives a rough spend for that ad, and a per-day number based on its running time.

Meta only renders those EU figures in the ad details view, not on the card. When they are not available, the button turns into a link to the ad details instead of showing an invented number. Treat the result as an estimate, not a measurement.

Troubleshooting

  • The button shows "Log in to CreativeScout": your session expired, or your token was revoked or mistyped. Click the button and sign in, or generate a fresh token in Settings and paste it again.
  • Ad already saved: each ad exists once per workspace. The extension tells you which board it is on.
  • "Subscription inactive": your workspace has no active subscription. Restart it under Settings in the app, then saving works again.
  • Save button missing: make sure you are on facebook.com/ads/library and reload the tab after installing the extension.
  • Ads land in the wrong workspace: open the extension popup and check the Workspace picker. If it is greyed out you are connected with a token, which is tied to one workspace; see "Choosing the workspace" above.

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